The Leak in the Dike

How many of you have grown up hearing or reading the story about the leak in the dike? It’s a legend about a brave little boy who saw a small trickle of water come through the huge earth embankments, dikes that kept the ‘angry sea’ from flooding the land. He stayed up all night, hungry, cold and tired stemming the flood with one small finger praying that someone would pass by, come to his rescue.

It was a long vigil.

But let’s turn the story around a bit. Let’s say Peter had been playing baseball, or whatever boys loved to play in Holland back in the 1800’s.He saw that it was getting late and was getting hungry. The sound of trickling water caught his attention so he stopped to look. Now even little children in the Netherlands knew a leak in the dike was serious so he resolved to tell his Papa as soon as he got home.

He got waylaid by some friends and they ended up playing tag for a while.

“Oh, by the way,” he said casually, “I saw a leak in the dike.”

The boys trouped over to the offending drip and plugged it with a stone.  The stone they chose wasn't big enough so they found a different one. Feeling uneasy, they went on their way but reasoned they were just young, this was a problem for adults to take care of.  “It’ll be okay until you tell your Pa,” they consoled him.

Well we can imagine what could have happened if this is how the story went, and it’s not a pretty scene.

But that is what is happening spiritually throughout the world.

“It’s really not necessary for women to have long hair,” they said to each other, “That was just a custom in Bible times.”

“Or why wear a head covering, even though all or nearly all churches did for hundreds of years. 1st Corinthians eleven was just the Apostle Paul’s opinion. (Oh, really?) It’s so old fashioned, unnecessary.

Off goes the beard: another unnecessary teaching, just a tiny hole in the dike, if even that.  Romans 9:20 &21.

Are these and other things such as modest apparel unnecessary, or are they tiny seepages in the seawall that are threatening the safety of the churches? You decide. Have things, attitudes, even sins come flooding into your church that might have been prevented if the small breaches had been repaired?